QUINCY, MASS. (WHDH) - Quincy residents are raising concerns over how much Mayor Thomas Koch could soon be paid, as a finance committee approved a hefty increase to his salary Monday night.
Quincy residents are raising concerns over how much Mayor Thomas Koch could soon be paid, as a finance committee approved a hefty increase to his salary Monday night.
The planned raise would make Koch one of the highest paid mayors in the country. Taxpayers in the city said they do not support the raise.
“There’s much better things for a taxpayer dollar to go to than giving a mayor a raise,” one Quincy resident said.
The finance committee approved Koch’s annual salary from $159,000 to $258,000. The raise is less than the $370,000 a consulting firm gave as the high end of its recommendation. That would have made him the highest paid mayor in the United States.
Even now, with $258,000, Koch would still be paid more than Boston Mayor Michelle Qu and New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
“So, are you saying Quincy’s mayor does more work than New York? Than Boston? I don’t think so. 79 percent is ridiculous. It’s ludicrous,” Quincy resident Mike Moog said.
Koch has not personally addressed the raise, but staff have said the raise is for the position, not the person.
“Why? Because he puts in a fountain? I mean he’s done great and if he’s responsible for all of this, kudos to him, but give me a break. I mean, the taxpayers can barely keep food on their table, and here is giving himself a raise? I mean, what about the homeless people,” a Quincy resident said.
The consultant hired by the city to recommend a new salary, Eric Olson, said his firm took a 2018 nationwide study of government salaries, as well as those of CEOs of nonprofits and hospitals, and then adjusted for inflation.
“We really do stand by that recommendation we made. You have academic deans in the academic world that are making $400,000 to $450,000, you have provosts that are making $700,000 to $800,000 and their annual budget is not anywhere close to the size of the City of Quincy’s,” Olson said.
The Quincy City Council has not returned requests for comment. Koch’s staff said the mayor was in meetings all day.
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